


Avian Destinies 3: Lavender Tea and Blueberry Scones

by RainbowSheltie



Series: Avian Destinies [3]
Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), Tommy Ratliff (Musician)
Genre: Angst, Discrimination, Drama, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Racism, Romance, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Tea Parties, Wingfic, blueberry scones, hiding under the bed, loose leaf tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-04-08 04:40:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4291173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainbowSheltie/pseuds/RainbowSheltie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam's having a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and it's up to Tommy to make Adam feel better. </p><p>It starts with Tommy at a small cafe for lunch, getting stood up by none other than Adam Lambert. Tommy chokes down his first instinct to scream and yell accusations in favor of taking deep, calm breaths. He then proceeds to buy a few scones and heads over to make sure Adam is okay. He's not, as it happens because Adam has hidden himself under the bed and refuses to come out. </p><p>Trash blogs, Kanye's terrible Queen cover, racism/discrimination, and being hit in the head with a balled up napkin all lie within.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Avian Destinies 3: Lavender Tea and Blueberry Scones

**Author's Note:**

> **BETA** : TheSupernova
> 
> [ **Kayne West Performs Queen @ Glastonbury** ](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2vu5te)
> 
> This story is part of the Avian Destiny series. It is recommended that the stories be read in chronological order, as listed.

Torture was the best word to describe Kanye's short cover of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Tommy hadn't actually been paying attention to the Glastonbury Festival this year, and would have missed it completely if it hadn't been for Adam. If any one performance garnered enough attention to have him personally mention it on Twitter, it was probably worth checking out. Even a negative review.

@adamlambert: OYE VEY Kanye. That Bohemian Rhapsody at Glastonbury though.... Ouch

Turns out, Adam had been right. The best word Tommy could have used to describe that hideous rendition was ‘ouch’.

It didn't immediately start out ear-cringing, but it was _awkward_. Tommy never understood why artists decided to add songs to their set list which basically amounted to a giant stadium-wide sing-along, because that's exactly what Kanye decided to do. This was feasibly the only part of the song which had been in tune because Kanye unfortunately thought it wise to open his mouth and join along. Tommy would have taken a key, _any key_ that Kanye might have chosen to sing in. It's just too bad he didn't choose any of them.

Tommy wasn't sure what was worse: Kanye using the sing-along to cover up the fact that he forgot part of the lyrics, or that he decided it appropriate to sing only the words which didn't have notes that went too high or too low. He wasn’t sure the rapper was able to string more than three or four words together before ‘letting the audience take over’. Awkward didn’t begin to cover it.

Of course, it’s also debatable over whether Kanye really ended up "singing" the song at all (it sounded like he was _trying_ to sing, but didn't quite make it). The rapper eventually went so far as to announced himself to all of Glastonbury as ‘the greatest living rock star on the planet’ and when Tommy found _that_ out, his sides were so cramped from laughing that he was having trouble breathing properly.

Tommy looked up from his phone, wiping away a tear from the corner of his eye as he watched the waitress walk towards him.

"Are you ready to order?" The waitress asked politely, if not strained. She did not look thrilled that he was still here and had yet to order anything. Tommy had been waiting in the small cafe for almost two hours and the only thing he had to show for it was an iced tea (with free refills).

He had been stood up. By Adam Lambert.

* * *

Things had gone back to normal for them after Ave Allergy Month, as much as it could; their relationship was still strained. Only time would heal that wound, though Tommy doubted those scars would ever truly fade. For now, all they could do was spend more time together and ensure more open and honest communication. Tommy was used to keeping things to himself, so he didn't always think about sharing his thoughts; didn't recognize the signs of when his bottled up emotions were about to explode until it was too late.

So in light of things, Tommy thought that he had a right to be upset with Adam, and _not_ because Tommy was being particularly dense or ignorant of his own actions. Tommy had a moment to be vindictive and petty—let's see how Adam would like to be the one on the receiving end of yet another communicative argument. It's always Tommy who can't do it right, isn't it? Not when the _high and mighty_ -

No. Tommy is _not_ going down that path again.

In his previous relationships, being stood up would have been cause for a fight, and had been on multiple occasions. Jumping to conclusions; to protect himself from being hurt, pretending to be the injured party. It's hard being in love, because it means putting your heart on the line and that is not easy to do. Opening yourself up to be hurt like that, its insanely intimate and scary and Tommy had no idea how Adam does that every day.

But if Adam is strong enough let his heart play tap dance on the high wire in this relationship, then Tommy can do it to.

Tommy ordered some blueberry scones to-go before driving over to Adam's. Although it wasn't the lunch they had planned, Tommy wanted to bring a peace offering. ‘ _I'm not upset over being stood up_ ,’ is what they said.

"Adam?" Tommy knocked on the door. No answer. Adam wasn't responding to his phone calls or texts. "Adam? I know you're here. Your car is in the driveway and I know your schedule was cleared for lunch. I talked to your manager and our friends on the drive over!"

Still nothing. "Come on, please? You know I don't have the key-"

Tommy paused mid-knock, feeling like an idiot as he took out the keychain from his back pocket. Adam had given him a new key a few days ago due to a security warning in the area, all residents were advised to double check the protection measures of their properties. The locks were changed out a week ago but the locksmith had had problems creating a spare key, and Adam had been out of town for a few days after, so it took a while for the key to find itself latched onto Tommy's keychain. He had totally forgotten about it until now.

The moment he unlocked the door, Tommy heard one of Queen's songs blaring thought the house like a foghorn. Tommy didn’t know how he missed this; the roaring sound had him covering his ears on his way towards its source: Adam's bedroom.

Small vibrations scurried across his feet with each step towards the massive entertainment system on the far wall. Even the artwork lining the walls and a few small decorations on top of various shelves were shaking in tandem. At a direct run from the bedroom door to the stereo hub, it had taken Tommy a precious 20 seconds to find and turn the speakers off. One minute later, and his head finally stopped pounding. Two and the ringing in his ears died down enough so he could attempt intelligent conversation with the voices living _outside_ his head.

Adam's phone was lying three feet away from the bed, playing Bohemian Rhapsody (by Queen). When Tommy reached for it, giant black wing tips slipped out from under the bed to hide the device. The song played on repeat.

"Adam?" Silence. The song re-looped. "Umm..."

The wing tips ruffled again. The left wing retracted briefly under the bed, extended parallel to the phone, and pulled back slightly to reveal Adam's iPad. An article about the Kanye's Glastonbury performance was displayed on the screen. Tommy snorted. Adam had probably found the only article—blog, in this case—explaining in no uncertain terms, why Adam was a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Singer and was not fit to be lead for Queen. The most recent post was something about how Kanye was the ‘omnipresent god of music’ and was born to become a living legend and Glastonbury was only one step further on his way to greatness (and something about conquering the world).

An obsessive fan. Tommy had met a few of those (most belonging to Adam, but still). This clearly had _crazy_ written all over it. Why the fuck was Adam even reading this crap? Still no sounds from under the bed. The wings twitched here and there, and he watched a small, stray feather waft out from under the bed.

"Adam, come on. Are you okay?" Tommy walked around to the other side of the bed, placing the tablet beside him as he knelt down onto the floor.

"No," came a muffled voice. "Everyone hates me."

Wow. That was such bullshit. Tommy had no response (none that wasn't already obvious) so he ignored it. "What's wrong? I'm worried about you."

Tommy flumped down onto his stomach, lifting up the bed curtain to see the black mess of Adam's hair. Adam was pointedly ignoring him, so Tommy sneaked his hand under the bed and left it there, waiting. A few seconds passed by before Tommy felt Adam's hand slide into his.

"Tell me what's wrong?"

Adam shook his head, tugged lightly on Tommy's hand. Tommy slid the tablet out of the way before doing a strange jimmy-shrug-wiggle-slide in order to get himself under the bed, feet first. Hands grabbed onto him, and Tommy was jiggled around until he was the little spoon. A wing shimmied itself around him, effectively creating a Tommy burrito. Tommy never had much appreciation for the space-under-the-bed as he did now; it was _huge_.

_Were king-sized beds always this big underneath? Why isn't Adam using this space for storage? God knows he has enough crap in this house that he could-_

"They canceled my performance."

"What?" Tommy tried twisting around to see Adam's face, but his body was locked in place. Adam's other wing circled over and up around them, until the shining light was blocked from view; this was an instinctive reaction. Hiding from the world.

"They knew who I was," Adam silenced Tommy objections with a soft nuzzle against the blonde neck. Tommy huffed.

"We're a secret race, the Aves. Not many people know about us, that we exist."

"We're not so different," Tommy reminded him.

"History doesn't lie; we're on the border of extinction; that's the price our race paid for publicity. In our desire to intermingle with the rest of the world, to be freely accepted. Isolationists now, the lot of us."

Tommy knew all this, but Adam was being melancholy and needed someone who would listen, not judge him. So he snuggled a bit into Adam's embrace; he was rewarded with a soft, rocking cuddle. Adam loved snuggling.

"Humanocentrism, Tommy." Tommy heard Adam's breath hitching, holding back the tears.

They both had faced their share of hatred and bullying growing up, for different reasons; today, Adam was one of the faces for anti-bullying and the LGBTQ movement, but no one was infallible facing down oppression.

Despite whatever Tommy said about the amount of space under Adam's bed, they were still _under the fucking bed_ and he was starting to get claustrophobic. Tommy could only do dark, cramped quarters for so long and Adam seemed to have no intention of moving. How did all this tie into a butchered version of a Queen cover?

Tommy's phone sang with a twirl. Text messages from Kris. Odd. Delayed send, the timestamp was from a little over two hours ago.

* * *

_I left a box of lavender tea leaves on the table. I hope you brought back some of his favorite scones from the cafe, he could use cheering up. Some bigots at the radio station tried to hurt him, an ambush, but Katy and I had been watching them for a while. We were worried. Adam's okay now, but they got to him first. Physically, he'll be fine. Nothing he won't recover from. Mentally..._

_Take care of him, Tommy._

_Oh, and for god sakes, if you find him hiding under the bed while blaring Queen through his house, tell him he needs to have his head checked and to stop reading those trash blogs. He only reads those when he's depressed. Misery breeds misery. Order take-out from that Emporium Thai place for lunch since I'm betting he stood you up, too._

_My wife, Katy, says to make him order one of those customized health shakes from that health shake place; that it'll make him feel better. Whatever helps, I suppose._

* * *

It was the loose leaf tea that eventually coaxed Adam out from under the bed. Tommy had brought one of Adam's tea trays out; a teapot and two cups, a small sugar bowl, a small plate of scones, two small saucers, some butter and jam and a handful of napkins. He set the tray on the floor of the bedroom and waited. Queen played faintly from the other side of the bed; at least Bohemian Rhapsody had been taken off repeat.

"Adam." Tommy's plea went unaided. "Will you come out and talk to me? Please? I brought you some-"

Tommy stopped mid-sentence when he saw a hand reach out and pull the metal tray slowly back under the bed. The sound of tea pouring and tiny silverware scraping tiny plates reached his ears. Eventually the little tray reappeared, sans one tea cup and two scones. He blinked.

Adam had poured Tommy a cup of tea and placed two buttered scones on the saucer for him. "Um. Thanks."

The bed made small sipping noises.

This was, undoubtedly, one of the strangest "tea parties" he'd ever been witness too. He blinked at the bed, which was now making small munching noises. Tommy followed in kind.

"So," Tommy began. "What nice sheets you have today."

Tommy's response was met with a crumpled napkin ball hitting him in the forehead. The tray was brought back under the bed for what sounded like a refill; a few seconds later, the tray returned with Adam's crumb-filled saucer and a second used napkin ball on top. The bed continued sipping its tea. Tommy was doing well holding back his laughter, trying to play along with whatever game Adam wanted to play; but it was all for naught when Tommy heard the bed burp a moment later.

He couldn't stop chuckling because this—this was classic. Tommy hit the ground laughing, head knocking against the solid, wooden floor. He would have kept laughing too, if the stereo system switching onto full blast hadn't startled the fucking shit out of him, making him crack his head against the corner of the hardwood dresser behind him.

The music flipped off a few seconds later, seemingly satisfied that Tommy had finally quieted down. Adam hadn't been in the best of moods to start with, which is why Tommy figured he had it coming when he peaked under the bed only to find a wall of wing blocking his view. Apparently Adam had turned his back on Tommy. Kris was going to have his head if Tommy didn't get Adam talking--or out from under the bed.

Then he remembered the finer points of the Kris' message.

"I'm sorry I laughed, Adam. It wasn't at you." Because the last thing Adam needed was to be made fun of; whoever those bigots were at the station, Tommy didn't need to know what they said to Adam. All bullies were the same. Tommy crawled around to the other side of the bed. The phone was playing Dragon Attack. He didn't see the tablet on his way around the floor, but assumed it was with Adam.

"I missed you at lunch today. Let’s go get something to eat, okay?"

"I'm sorry, baby." The soft voice startled Tommy, making him jump about three feet in the air, his heart racing.

"Fuck Adam. I did _not_ think you'd answer me." He had been hypnotized by the song; it was a very fun song to play on stage. "Sorry for what?"

When no answer was forthcoming, he got down on his stomach again and this time, he was met with Adam's alternating steel-blue and gold eyes. Adam took a second to gather himself. "I stood you up. We talked about communication and I-"

"No." Tommy stopped that thought train in its tracks. "No. You. Are. Excused. More than excused. Kris let me know what was going on and... I'm sorry it happened. It shouldn't, you know. It doesn't seem like a big deal. Wings or no wings, we're all human."

"Kris said you'd take me to my favorite Thai place when you got home." Adam looked around, spotting his phone. He made the playlist shuffle to the next track: Fat Bottomed Girls. "I said you'd be pissed at me, and we'd be yelling at each other. Then you'd storm off and return an hour later to apologize once you realized it was the anger talking. You'd then tell me what a shit communicator you are, and we'd tentatively put this behind us and you'd leave here praying this blow up doesn't come back to haunt your ass, because it always does. It builds up inside of you."

Bingo. Adam was right on all accounts. Tommy was starting to learn from his mistakes, though. He stopped his anger before it had even had time to build--instead of complaining about being stood up, he let himself _trust_ that Adam didn't do it to hurt him. He _trusted_ his lover, so Tommy bought some scones as a peace offering. 

Wide, curious eyes were watching him, waiting for a response, to know how Tommy would react to this blatant accusation.

"You're right," Tommy answered truthfully. "I would have done that, once upon a time. Fuck, you know I'm not perfect. Maybe next time we'll be spitting mad at each other and we'll be taking off the kitten gloves to get in a real cat fight." Adam snorted. "But the benefit of the doubt, you know? I trust you. I brought those scones from the cafe just for you."

Adam laughed; it was a hollow sound. "I had gotten on your case just yesterday over your communication skills; I didn't expect you to just let this go so quickly. You're not really the vindictive type, but I thought you'd love to have one over on me legitimately for a change."

He _would_ have liked the feeling of superiority, but as hard as it was to learn, sometimes you _have_ to let things go. There was a time and a place for gloating, and this wasn't it. The distinction here was important.

Tommy pulled himself towards the bed, scooting until his face was a few inches away from Adam's. He grabbed for Adam's hand, closing it tightly within his.

"I'm trying, Adam. I know I have problems, but I'm working on it. It's _you_ I'm worried about. You're _not_ okay, and I want to help. What can I do?"

A grin slowly made its way onto Adam's face, and he let Tommy pull him completely out from under the bed. A curious glance over saw a few bald patches on Adam's left wing; when Adam caught Tommy looking he shrugged, twisting his wing away from prying eyes.

"The feathers will grow back." Adam laughed again, sadly. "Discrimination. Racism. You tolerate it, but you don't ever get used to it. It hurts. Every time, you know?"

Adam's voice was breaking. Tommy pulled on Adam's hand until Adam let his body fall gently against Tommy's. "It sucks," Tommy said.

A huff in response. Adam snuggled around Tommy, holding him close. Adam's feathers ruffled themselves out in a shiver running from base to tip; the feathers bustled up, before smoothing themselves out. "Even if I cut them off, it wouldn't change that I'm an Ave."

A hand guided Tommy's to the base of the left wing; it was lightly bandage, and he thought he could feel knife marks on surrounding skin.

Tears rolled freely down Tommy's neck as Adam started crying in earnest. Imagine, a 35 year old man: strong, beautiful, and talented. That same 35 year old man, broken down and crying because someone made him feel _ashamed_ of who he is.

"You're human, Adam," Tommy responded, nuzzling back softly. "Don't ever be ashamed of that."

The best cure for a depressed Ave named Adam Lambert was to go on a date with every damn person Tommy could find who loved Adam for who he was. Being that Tommy didn't want to rent out an amphitheater just for Adam's cheer-up party, Tommy settled for the 15 people he could get a hold of and they rented out a party room that night in the Emporium Thai restaurant. Adam's brother and mother showed up, along with a mixture of friends from all faucets of Adam's life. A few close, personal friends that had nothing to do with Adam's music, some that did and others that were Aves who knew exactly what Adam was going through.

Fuck whoever said Aves weren't human. We're all human. Looking at how happy and carefree Adam is, socializing like the little butterfly he is, it's hard to see how despondent he had been just a few hours earlier. Tommy knows that a few of the people here are planning on going to a dance club later.

Yeah, we're all human, but the people who are so blinded by _what_ Adam is that they can't see the beauty Adam brings to the world around them, Tommy thinks that _those_ people are probably just a little less human than the rest of humanity. It's a shame really, because if they could just open their eyes a little wider, they would see exactly what Tommy does.

_The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return._

_\- Nature Boy by_ _Eden Ahbe_ _z_

**Author's Note:**

>  **Prompts** :
> 
> #1 **TommyJoe Ratliff** : (retweet/favorited) [ @adamlambert: OYE VEY Kanye. That Bohemian Rhapsody at Glastonbury though.... Ouch](https://twitter.com/adamlambert/status/615598005400551425)
> 
> #2 [**Lilybells' Sterek Comic**](http://sterek-stories.tumblr.com/post/35511208067/derek-hales-no-good-very-bad-day): Derek Hale's No Good, Very Bad Day
> 
> #3 **...And the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.**


End file.
